In bangkok

i have safely reached Bangkok, I am here with internet access so yay yay hippee hooray!! But the only sad part is, i haven't been to the city and from what i heard, i will have approximately 24 hours to tour bangkok city for the entire 3 weeks... NICE....

Oh well, things are good. I am a little homesick because i didn't leave on a good note.. I was stressed out all week over work that somehow landed on my desk without any prior warning. So it wasn't that i wasn't prepared enough, i had no choice but to be stressed and anyone who knows a stressed out "charlene" would know that i can be a real bitch at times...

Hope all is well, its the beginning of my course today and i've just found out that i will have a 3-4 days exposure visit before i travel to chiangmai for the rest of my course. Now that i know, i am partially excited, partially torn. Out of the options which i have to only choose one, i really want to go to two places!! garrr

Firstly, i have the option of visiting the Maesot Camp for Burmese refugees in Thailand. This is an extremely rare opportunity considering that to enter the camp for non related staffs of the camp is virtually impossible.

Second option is to go to the mountains in northern thailand to live with the indigenous tribe people. These people have no citizenships and are a conflicted community. However, the mountains they live on is said to be an extreme beauty. It is cold, nature at the best raw form, and it is an experience that i can learn from too.

What do you think? which one will you go for? share your views with me...

Cheers...Thank God for internet....

Thailand here i come!

Dear all,

I do not know if there'll be internet services where i will be in the next three weeks therefore i will be absent from the blogging world. I shall sorely miss you all and hope that i will be missed in return ( in whatever way you wish ) .

I am going to Bangkok for a "peace studies and conflict transformation" course. Hope i'll be back soon to share what i learn with the communities i work with..

Till then....

Rainbows and Marshmellows.....

The Messiah Syndrome

Yesterday, i watched the Oscar winning film which the world was raving about. It was mixed emotions for me, sitting through the film. 

While i am very much aware and exposed to this level of poverty and the lack of humanity in our world due to my line of work, it was hard to be completely numb to it. I find me telling myself on a daily basis that i cannot save the world even if i were a queen. Although i was not really shocked or depressed, i still felt a pang of pain. But still, it's difficult.

Yesterday, My colleagues and i talked about the "Messiah Syndrome". A syndrom commonly encountered among social workers where they have this incessant need to be of service to the marginalized communities and beat themselves up for not being able to do it all. They beleive that they must carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. It's a syndrome sometimes driven by religion, sometimes driven by the self, sometimes by guilt even if they are put in a miserable state where they are earning peanuts and living in physical conditions they cannot come to terms with. They are often depressed, burnt out and life is a chore. 

When i talk to new people about refugees, they often ask me how i could coldly address the distress. I guess partially it's because i've repeated their plights so many times that it is easy to lose hope that not much can be done. But i believe that if i do not maintain a impartial life between work and my personal life, i will grow insane, and I too will be sucked into the "messiah syndrome".

I attended a meeting recently with a few top guns in politics and to my surprise, it was a meeting unlike any other. Now mind you, i have a prejudice towards public authority figures. I am cautious of their intentions and aims, only because i have experienced too many phony people who are actually trying to shove their agenda  in disguise of being service to the greater needs of the people. This meeting was with an ex politician who has service our country for 36 years. He was surprisingly humble, direct and honest. He was making ammends for the abomination caused by the government that he had defended for more than 3 decades.It was a breath of fresh air. For once, i felt that it was a meeting that was worth the time. There was a positive outcome, and hopefully, a new hope for the refugees in Malaysia. 

PushPockets-Beware!

PUSH-POCKET IN KUALA LUMPUR 

I am sure you all have heard of 'pick pocket'. 
A new trend 'push pocket'. 
Read on.. for your own good 

A few days ago a new type of crime has surfaced in town. 
It goes something like this:- 
Somebody slips a hand-phone into your pocket, 
sometimes it could be just a wallet with 
an identity card and a few ringgit. 
A few minutes later, the 'owner' comes up 
and confronts you, the 'thief '. 
He makes a big commotion that you stole his stuff. 

You, caught unaware, are then pulled aside by the 
'owner' for a settlement. You are intimidated and threatened
that if you do not pay up the police will be brought in. 
If you pay up, this 'owner' lets you go. 
If not, the police are brought in. 

Another strange thing is that there always seems 
to be a 'witness' to your 'theft'. 

I am told this often happens to foreigners at 
the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) 
or even at LRT trains. 
Given that you're 'guilty until proven innocent' 
as far as t he Malaysian police are concerned, 
I understand some poor people are in jail for 
these 'offences'. 

At the KLIA, the 'owner' throws his hand-phone and 
wallet with the few ringgit notes into the luggage 
trolley of a just arrived passenger. 
The drama unfolds a few minutes later. 
The real culprit has easily convinced our Malaysian police 
to arrest the real victim (if he has not paid up the 'settlement' demand). 
This is a very serious matter. 


This is another form of extortionists operating in broad daylight. 
They are disgusting criminals who will do anything 
to rob and steal. The sickening part of the whole 
scenario is that unless you pay the 'quoted settlement' money, 
they will put you in real trouble by calling the police. 

The real culprit gets back his hand-phone 
and wallet but the real victim ( i.e. could be any one of us)
is thrown into the police lock up and charged in court.. 


So do be very careful, 
otherwise you may end up as a 'thief' 
as you have no way to prove your innocence.

I'm back

After a long long time.. I am back. It's been extremely difficult the past few weeks to sit down and write something. Perhaps because there's been a million and one things to do and i just couldn't find time to unwind. Blogging, is my idea of unwinding...

There are few days in a year you truly look forward to. For myself those days would be christmas, anniversaries, Chinese new year, birthdays of loved ones but never my very own birthday. They say people who are jaded through their birthdays are people who are mortally depressed with life. If you can’t look forward to your very own birthday, enough said…

First things first, I hate birthday cakes especially if it was for my birthday. I hate the whole fuss and frills of decorations and people treating you special on that day. And balloons. Geez, need I say more. If you do not already know, I have an irrational fear of those time bombs. ( I shall not go into details to how that phobia came along)

I haven’t had a birthday party for a good 7 years. Not that I miss it because well, you can’t really miss what you never had right? On top of that, 7 years ago, when I decided that I would have my 19^th birthday party bash, I had a catastrophic experience. For starters, my housemate who was a kleptomaniac stole all the money I had stashed aside for my month’s worth of rent, allowance and money I had saved to spend on my birthday bash. My then boyfriend, caused me to fall due to his impatience and resulted a big tear in my favorite pair of jeans and not to mention a tear on my knees too. He then bought me two pair of jeans that were ill fitting and showed off my thunder thighs which he insisted looked “nice”. My friends then pooled some money as my birthday present and expected me to use that money to treat them to a birthday party which I did eventually. I had no presents that year, a sad and miserable month living on instant and canned food, and failed 2 papers in my a levels the very same month which I had to retake in the following semester. Talk about bad luck.

That was probably why I hated celebrating my birthday and went to all lengths of never celebrating it again. Come to think of it, I never had a sweet sixteen birthday, nor a 21^st birthday bash. I remember spending every birthday thereafter crying over something or someone. Enough said, I believed and till this very day believe that the 19^th of February is my version of Friday the 13^th.

This year is however is nothing like all the other years, but better than the others before. I’ve already got my first present and gosh baby, I love it to bits and pieces. Bernard’s a practical person and for every gift that he has ever given me, it has always been the best out of the best ( even though many a time I do really like the second best option better ). And thank you sweetheart for everything. Dinner was great and fun. But for what’s worth, I think I have grown out of hating this day over time. For starters, i didn't tear even once in the past few days. Haha.. I guess I have finally grown up.

Last weekend, all my loved ones plotted to lure me into a surprise birthday trip. Well, i must say, it worked out very well. I was clueless till the very end. I had an awesome time. From the entire surprise that these people actually managed to con me into a trip i never expected them to plan, to winning big bucks in the casino, to baby sitting jez and watching timmy play clown with his underwear on his head to the scrumptious fish head curry we feasted twice on, the number 19 is hardly inauspicious for me anymore..Thank you everyone. I needed that well deserved action packed holiday badly and it was the best time i've had in years. Oh did i mention i blew candles off 2 cakes this year? *wink*

I am trying to think of ways I have grown over the year and there is just too many to list down. From a green horn in my line of work, people are actually aware of my talent and achievements. I have lesser friends, but the ones who have stayed with me throughout are always there when I need them. I have learnt that politics exist everywhere you work and there is just no point trying to look for that dream job. There’s a reason why it is called a “dream job”. I have learnt that criticisms only builds character and also learnt that it is okay to say “thank you” to a compliment. I have learnt that being hardy is not plain being bitchy but being able to withstand rejection and yet being able to walk away gracefully. I have learnt that it is important to remind yourself of those set of principles you have set initially otherwise you will eventually evolve into someone you could not recognize in the mirror one day. And I have also learnt most of all the importance of distinguishing how to be dependent on a person yet be emotionally independent off the person. I guess this is what it takes to finally be 26 years old. 

I love you all....